Loyal to Whom
by simonesummers
Summary: What I envision following Season 7 Episode 7. Jaime leaves Cersei to travel North for the coming war. Brienne of Tarth had a way with words regarding loyalty.
1. Freedom due North

"Oh, Fuck Loyalty!" Brienne demanded, grabbing Jaime's arm in an attempt to make him understand. Jaime turned, disbelief coloring his expression.

"Fuck Loyalty?" he repeated, nearly unwilling to imagine such a phrase coming from Brienne of Tarth.

"This goes beyond houses, and honor, and oaths. Talk to the queen." She pleaded, unwilling to break his steady and intense gaze. She needed him to understand. She was breaking inside. All eyes were on them, most markedly the penetrating scrutiny from Cersei.

"And tell her what?" he snapped, but with a hint of despair in his voice that would certainly haunt Brienne for nights to come. He turned and walked away, trailing after his sister. And Brienne broke.

…

The ride north was a confusing one. Podrick rode alongside her and provided endless drivel about swordsmanship, the coming war, and his anticipation to return to Winterfell. They had parted from the King of the North and the Dragon Queen the day before, but the turn of events still had her head spinning. From what she had heard and seen of Cersei, this woman had a vice grip on Jaime's will and a mad glint in her eyes. "What in god's name could Tyrion Lannister have said to that woman?" she muttered to herself. The Queen had changed her mind within the span of an hour, and had sworn her assistance to the North. It was too good to be true.

"Should we set up camp? It's nearly dark." Podrick asked, snapping her out of her deliberations.

"There's an inn a few miles north of here, we can stop there for the night and have a hot meal. Once we're north of Winterfell, there will be nothing but want of the sort."

"Aye, m'lady."

After what seemed like a lifetime, Cersei gave the slight nod that shattered the ghost of a former love, his loyalty. The sound of the unsheathed sword behind him rung in his ears; he could feel his heart in his throat. The abomination that remained of the Mountain towered behind him, ready to carry out a swift sentence for his ruthless Queen. Suddenly, Jaime felt as though his armor was fifty pounds heavier and dragging his body to the ground. It took every effort he could muster to keep himself grounded, to stop his head from swimming. He had long felt his sister was slowly distancing herself from reality. He had a brief hope that the horrific beast, the dead man walking, snarling its decaying jaw in the direction of any sign of life, had shaken his sister to her core. He had hoped, he had thought, that she had come to her senses. For so many years, he had been the shame of the Lannisters, oathbreaker, King Slayer. And here, now, his sister was going back on her word to support the North in the war against the dead. At least a hundred thousand, the Targaryen girl claimed. He could hardly fathom the scale of the army, the army of men that would only continue to grow upon further victory. Something had to be done.

"I don't believe you." He spit, turning to leave. She didn't call after him. He continued to walk. He didn't look back.

Snow was starting to fall on King's Landing. A cold was seeping through the city that invigorated and numbed Jaime all at once. He barely noticed he was leaving until he was outside of the city walls. He couldn't refuse the North; the fight waiting was a war where Lannister meant next to nothing, houses bore no meaning, and loyalties were made to the living. He covered his gold hand with a glove, took hold of the reigns, and rode his horse north. He had never felt more free in his life. He had finally paid his debt.

…

The inn was dimly lit but warm against the winter night. Brienne led Podrick into the dusty hall where the promising smell of fresh bread and hearty soup was drifting by a roaring fire. There were only two other travelers visiting the inn, two older men, one asleep at the bar and the other warming his feet by the fireplace. Brienne sighed a small breath of relief, remembering the tense procession the day before and thankful for a reprieve. Podrick left her at a table in the corner of the hall while he retrieved their dinners. Brienne glanced around, grateful for the absence of stares from fearful men or certain red-headed wildlings radiating a wanting desire that frankly, was disturbing. She shuddered and returned her focus to Podrick, who was just sitting down with two steaming bowls of stew, bread, and a pitcher of ale.

"You're going to have a difficult time staying on your horse, Pod, if you finish up that drink." Brienne said, ripping off a bite of bread.

"Lady Brienne, all due respect, but after seeing a dead man walking, I think we both need a drink." Podrick raised his eyebrows and lifted his glass, and Brienne smirked, allowing a hint of mirth in her expression. She refused and shook her head; Podrick shrugged his shoulders and went on drinking. His large swig of ale was short-lived however, as he immediately coughed up his drink at the sight of an unexpected guest in the doorway.

Brienne turned to follow his gaze, hand quickly moving to Oathkeeper, her valerian steel sword. She didn't expect the previous owner of that very sword to be standing, covered in mud and a light dusting of snow, before her with a wild look on his face.

"Ser Jaime?" she asked. He appeared to stumble a bit as he walked forward, and she worried he would collapse. He dropped his hands onto their table, sat down quickly, and without speaking, held his head in his hands. Podrick knew well enough to not to be concerned that Jaime Lannister had just barged into their quiet inn.

"'I'll go get another stew." Podrick excused himself, leaving the two sitting alone.

After a few moments of silence, Jaime finally looked up to meet the piercing stare of Brienne, a stare he had only seen just yesterday but it still felt like years.

"Ser Jaime, how long have you been travelling? You look absolutely exhau-"

"Fuck Loyalty?" Jaime interrupted, with the same crease in his forehead he had yesterday. "In all my years, I've seen Kings and Queens fall, houses destroyed, famine and plague, and now recently, dragons and dead men make an appearance in the same fucking day, but never, never would I have though, I'd ever see the noble Brienne of Tarth yelling to fuck loyalty like she had lost her mind!"

"I apologize for my vulgarity, but I thought given the situation-"

"Fuck Loyalty! Just like that. Fuck the only damn thing keeping me in King's Landing, the last strand of faith I had that I was doing the right thing. Fuck the whole damn thing!"

"Ser Jaime, you must lower your voice-"

"Fuck!" Jaime yelled, slamming his gold hand onto the table with a dull, metallic thunk. He returned to cradling his head, refusing to look at her as he said the following words.

"She lied." He nearly whispered.

"Who lied?" Brienne encouraged.

"Cersei. She's not going to fight with the North. She will be fighting the North."

They paused.

"She told you this?" Brienne leaned in, desperate for him to look up.

"She nearly killed me." He muttered.

"But… aren't you…" Brienne struggled to find the appropriate words to ask about the incestuous nature of his relationship with his sister. It wasn't exactly a topic she favored bringing up.

"Cersei and I are different people from before. I fear for an iron throne with her in it."

"She intends to fight the North as they fight the dead? Why are you telling me this? I will have to share this with Lady Sansa, who will surely inform the King of the North and the Dragon Queen."

"You won't have to do that."

"Of course I will, I'm representing Lady Sansa-"

"No, you won't have to, because I will be riding North with you. I will tell them myself."

Brienne didn't have an immediate response to this.

"Is that acceptable, Lady Brienne?" he asked, finally looking back up. The wild look he had previously had been replaced by steely determination.

"How did you know Podrick and I were staying here?" she asked.

"Honestly?" he smirked, the first hint of a smile she had seen on his face in years. "I stormed into at least four other inns before I got to this one." He reached for Podrick's ale and finished off what remained in his glass. "So, what's for dinner?"


	2. Madness Incarnate

Podrick couldn't help but feel a bit left out for the remainder of the trip to Winterfell. They had a day left of their journey, and he had come to notice a couple of surprising details about the famed Jamie Lannister. First of all, he never slept through the night. Podrick would often wake to see him sitting by the smoldering fire, lost in thought and gazing up at the starry sky. Moreover, he was not at all what he expected. He knew that Lady Brienne had spent quite some time with the Kingslayer in the past when she was returning him to King's Landing for Catelyn Stark. He recalled Ser Bronn commenting on the nature of their relationship, but at the time Podrick had simply brushed it off as talk. After travelling with the two for the past four days, he couldn't help but wonder if he had been too hasty to disregard the comment. From his time with Lady Brienne, he had experienced a nearly insurmountable front between her and the men she encountered. From what Brienne had described, she had a history of mistreatment and disrespect from the lesser fair of the sexes. Thus, she learned to command respect, and became one of the most skilled fighters in Westeros. She was entirely different around Jaime. Or rather, he was different around her, compared to other men. He treated her with near reverence; in his eyes, she was an equal, which most fools refused to afford her simply given her gender. For this reason, Podrick took a liking to him almost immediately.

…

Brienne woke with a start to the sounds of movement nearby. The fire had all but gone out, leaving an ethereal glow over the snowy enclosure of trees they had found for the night. The moon was dim and blotted out by a cloudy sky, but Brienne could still see the silhouette of Jaime a few feet away, pacing the ground with a slow but deliberate pace. She peered over to where Podrick lay; he was sleeping soundly, which was evident from a rather large snore he happened to produce at that moment. Pushing herself off the ground, she brushed her clothes off and cleared her throat as to not startle Jaime's contemplative state.

"Ser Jaime?" she asked, allowing him to speak.

"Apologies, Lady Brienne, did I wake you?" Jaime mumbled, still pacing.

"Be that as it may, something has woken you as well." She returned, carefully stepping over Podrick's sleeping form in order to join Jaime on his side of the enclosure.

After many beats of silence, Jaime was the first to speak.

"Have you ever done something, and then after having done it, regretted it immensely?"

"Are you regretting joining the North?" Brienne asked, anxious that Jaime had a change of heart.

"No, no, that's not what I mean. You always seem to have this moral compass, that no matter what occurs, you are able to find the right thing to do. It's as though you do no wrong."

"Ah," Brienne replied, understanding what he meant. "I'm afraid I will have to shatter your illusions of me, Ser Jaime, for I am not the woman you seem to envision." Brienne sat down on a large boulder and continued her response.

"I've made many a mistake, Ser Jaime. I could have protected Lord Renly from his brother. I let my revenge on Stannis Baratheon cloud my duty, and was not able to aid Sansa Stark when she required it most. I fought the Hound and won but lost sight of Arya Stark in the process. My Lady Catelyn…" Brienne trailed off.

"You could've protected her from a massacre but instead you were trailing my sorry self across Westeros" Jaime filled in, not with accusation but with reassurance.

Brienne nodded in agreement.

"It may not have seemed like the right choice to you, but I'm very glad you did that. The Frey betrayal would've likely resulted in your murder too, as much as I would've liked to have seen you destroy half the cowardly men in that room in seconds before they attempted to end your life. They would've written songs about it, you know."

Brienne could sense he was avoiding the topic he wished to discuss most.

"I do not regret delivering you safely to King's Landing." She revealed. "It is true that I have faced many regrets, Ser Jaime, but that was not one of them."

"I'm pleased you don't regret me." Jaime said with a warmth to which Brienne was not accustomed.

"What exactly is it that you've done that you regret immensely?" Brienne steered him back to his original question. Jaime sighed.

"Of my many misdeeds, I have never wavered with ending the life of the Mad King. Yes, this earned me my fair share of hatred throughout Westeros, but I saved half a million lives. I remind myself every time a shred of doubt enters my thoughts. Now, though, as I leave King's Landing and ride North, I realize that the exact King I overthrew has reared his head incarnate in my sister. I didn't fully understand it until the day I left. The decisions Cersei is making, the lives it will cost, it's unfathomable… and of all things, against an army of dead men! The enemy could not be clearer, yet she chooses to contest the living. After losing three children, I fear she has lost herself. The North cannot fight a war on two fronts, with the fate of Westeros lying north and a senseless fight for my sister's madness to the south. I know what must be done. But to carry out that sentence… I'm unsure I can survive it yet again."

"Ser Jaime," Brienne spoke in a lowered voice, "Are you saying you plan to end the life of Queen Cersei? Your sister?"

"I am aware that she is my sister, Lady Brienne." Jaime snapped. It stung Brienne and she stayed silent. Jaime sighed, regretting losing his temper. "I do not see a victory over the dead possible, while she is still living. I see the end of Westeros with her on the throne. Every battle, war, death, everything up until this winter was insignificant compared to what is coming."

"You do not need to be the one who takes her life." Brienne implored. Jaime ignored her words.

"If I do, will I live the rest of my life with regret? It was one thing to leave King's Landing, to pledge myself to what I know is right, but this, this is entirely different. I would be alone. I am already alone." He trailed off, only just fully realizing that his sister and unborn child were out of his life forever.

"You are not alone." Brienne stopped him adamantly. He scoffed. She continued. "Even if you were alone, you still have yourself. You see what is right and what is wrong, and you seek the former even if it costs you everything. That is all we can ever hope to achieve." He looked at her and met her gaze. The apparent torment in his eyes slowly faded, leaving behind pure exhaustion in its wake. He finally stopped pacing and they paused, staring for quite some time at one another until Podrick released yet another deep snore.

"You should get some rest. Tomorrow we'll arrive at Winterfell." Brienne suggested, standing herself up and gesturing to his original spot by the campfire.

"I could say the same to you. A lady up, at these hours?" Jaime nudged, little to Brienne's amusement. Jaime chuckled to himself and walked over to his blanket. Brienne followed suit and returned to where she had been sleeping.

They were quiet for a few minutes before Jaime turned his head to look over at her, her eyes shut in hopes to fall back asleep.

"Thank you for your words." He added.

She kept her eyes closed. "They weren't just opinions. Take them as the truth."

They stayed silent after that, listening to a light wind against the trees and unremitting snores of her faithful squire.


End file.
